had kept his mouth shut I would still be eating rancid meat and plotting my own way out of Paris.
At last we reached the gibbet and, if you should wish to see a vision of Hell before death, go to Montfaucon. A hideous place! A flat, oblong mound fifteen feet high, about thirty feet wide and forty feet long, it stands like some horrible pimple outside Paris on the road to Saint Denis. On three sides of this mound there is a colonnade on a raised platform comprising sixteen evenly spaced square pillars of unhewn stone, each thirty-two feet high, linked together at the top by heavy beams with ropes and chains hanging from them at short intervals. You could hang a small village there. In the centre of the platform gapes an immense lime pit covered by a grating which is used for the disposal of the hanged after they have been gibbeted. (Did you know in summer the gallants take their doxies out there for a picnic? Imagine, wine and pastries under the swinging corpses of the damned!)
When I arrived, Montfaucon seemed to have been busy. At least fifteen crow-pecked corpses, slimed by their own decay, swung from the end of creaking ropes. By now my courage had failed and I had to be helped up the steep, wooden steps, the executioner's assistants whispering that if I made a good show they would make sure I would choke for no more than ten minutes. Behind me the cart creaked away and the executioners busied themselves with the ropes. I glimpsed Capote beside me, now quiet. The thick hempen cords were slung round our necks; a dusty-robed priest appeared as if from nowhere to recite in a precise voice the last prayer for the dying. The provost came to the edge of the scaffold, unrolled a parchment and read the sentences of death. The noose was tightened and I was pushed up a ladder.
'Don't be nervous,' the executioner grinned. 'At least you don't have to go down it again!'
I gazed out wildly over the crowds.
'Not now,' I whispered. 'Surely, not now!'
The ladder was turned, I heard a voice cry out: 'Not that one!'
But I was already choking as the noose tightened around my throat. I heard a terrible pounding in my ears, my heart thudding like a drum, my stomach lurching as I swung on the end of the rope. I turned and twisted. Capote was also dancing in the air. I couldn't breathe, the pain in the back of my head was so intense, then suddenly blackness.
I revived as I felt myself go hurtling through the air and crashed down on to the wooden planks of the scaffold. The noose round my neck was loosened, I retched and vomited. Beside me crouched the provost, looking concerned.
'You are still with us, Master Shallot?'
I retched again, on to his robe, a suitable thanks to the hard-faced bastard. He squirmed in distaste.
'A pardon, Shallot.' He thrust the small scroll under my nose. 'Someone still loves you!'
The provost made a sign. Two of the archers picked me up under the armpits and hustled me down the steps of the scaffold. I glanced at Capote, still dangling, choking out his life. I saw a sea of faces and heard the boos and catcalls of the crowd, cheated of their sport. A serjeant-at-arms, wearing the royal arms of France on his tabard, gestured to the archers to hoist me into the saddle of a horse whose reins he held.
Hell's teeth, I can hardly remember the rest! A bumpy, shaky ride back across Paris. I thought I was being taken to the prison but instead found myself outside the door of Le Coq d'Or. The serjeant-at-arms, hidden behind the guard of his conical helmet, dragged me down and pushed me into a chamber where a candle glowed in the darkness. I smelt the sour odour of sweaty robes and noticed a brazier of gleaming charcoal had been rolled in. I was shoved down on the bed, the soldier left and the slattern bustled in with a small manchet loaf and a goblet of wine. She watched me eat for a while, mumbled something and left. I nearly choked on the bread; my neck and throat seemed to be ringed by a cruel vice. Stars danced before my eyes and I kept shaking with fear at my latest brush with death. Surely you understand? One minute dangling on the end of a rope; the next a reprieve, a bumpy ride through Paris, followed by the sweetest bread and most fragrant wine I had tasted for months.
[Ever since Montfaucon I have always dreaded executions. I mean, sometimes, as Lord of the Manor, I have to order one but my court is well known for its leniency. Of course, I pay the price. At night my fields are more alive with poachers than rabbits. I will grant the most hardened criminal a reprieve rather than see him hang. The chaplain is nodding his little, bald head. Of course, the idiot now understands the reason for my mercy. He probably thought I had a soft heart. Well, he learns something every day, including why I can never bear anything tight round my throat. Even the touch of smoothest silk reawakens the horrors of my journey to Montfaucon.]
Anyway, back to Le Coq d'Or where I lay on the truckle bed and drifted off to sleep.
When I awoke Benjamin was leaning over me, his eyes bright in a face more pallid than usual.
'Roger, I have returned.'
'Of course, you have, you bloody idiot! Just in time!' I snarled. 'Where in Hell's name have you been?'
Chapter 10
Benjamin sat on the stool next to my bed and wiped the sweat from his face. He looked paler and thinner.
'I'm sorry, Roger,' he mumbled. 'It's a long story. I went to Kelso in Scotland.' He looked away, lost in his memories. 'A lonely monastery surrounded by a sea of dark purple heather and deserted, haunted moors. A grey- slated, dark-stoned building.' He smiled thinly. 'Oh, I was safe enough. Agrippa gave me a safe conduct and the Lord d'Aubigny arranged for moss troopers to guard my every step.'
'What did you find?' I asked crossly.
Benjamin rubbed his eyes on the back of his hand. 'Nothing,' he replied. 'Nothing at all. Many Scots fled to Kelso after Flodden, but you know something, Roger? No one could remember a single event from those stormy days.' He furrowed his brow. 'Even stranger, the prior, the sub-prior, all the officials of that monastery, had been changed. Some had died in rather mysterious circumstances, others been sent abroad on this task or the other. The rest,' he shrugged, 'were as silent as the grave. Only one old lay brother, a hoary old man, mumbled about the abbey being the dark pit for the evil deeds of the Great Ones of the land.'
He sighed. 'Then I came south to Royston but Queen Margaret and her party had already returned to London to collect all their possessions so I followed in hot pursuit. I visited the Lord Cardinal at the Palace of Sheen. He already knew about our mission to Nottingham being successful and welcomed my visit to Kelso and your journey to Paris.' Benjamin took a deep breath. 'Then I fell ill. At first I thought it was some ague but it proved to the Sweating Sickness. Uncle sent me to St Bartholomew's and Agrippa brought an old lady who fed me on a concoction of crushed moss mixed with the leavings of sour milk. The fever broke but I was weak.' He patted me gently on the shoulder. 'The Lord Cardinal sent an envoy but the fellow was ambushed, apparently killed by robbers outside Dover.'
'I don't think so,' I tartly retorted. 'He was killed by assassins just like the bastards nearly murdered me at Le Coq d'Or!'
'What do you mean?' Benjamin asked.
I told him my story in sharp, succinct phrases. Benjamin listened carefully.
'I'm sorry,' he apologised. 'I have been in Paris a week. The landlord here swears he knew nothing of you.'
'He's a liar!' I interrupted.
'He may well be. Anyway, I went to the Provost of Paris. I invoked all the Lord Cardinal's power to organise a search for you. Actually, the pardon was issued last night.' He grimaced. 'But you know officials.'
'Yes, I do!' I snarled. 'Only too well. The bastards had me hanged!'
Benjamin bit his lip. 'I agree with you, Roger, but your troubles began with that piece of red silk. It was the signal for your murder. Undoubtedly the demon who dogs our footsteps has agents in Paris.'
'That may well be so,' I answered, 'but Moodie gave me the cloth, so he must be the assassin.'
[Ah, there goes my chaplain again, jumping up and down on his stool. 'I told you! I told you!' he cries. I just tell him to shut up and give him a sharp rap across the knuckles. The little turd doesn't know what he's talking about.]
